


These Crooked Paths

by easternepiphany



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Fix-it fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 01:32:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4000876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easternepiphany/pseuds/easternepiphany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thea goes into the Lazarus Pit. Thea comes out of the Lazarus Pit. So does Sara.</p>
<p>Felicity doesn't really get it, either, but she has some relationship problems to solve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Crooked Paths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [usoverlooked](https://archiveofourown.org/users/usoverlooked/gifts).



> Happy Birthday to my absolutely amazing and wonderful and perfect best friend Libby. I love you to pieces and beyond.
> 
> Please note that almost all of this was written before the season three finale aired, so there is one part where it looks like I basically replaced Oliver with Ray, but please note that was not intentional because that's gross and I would never do that. Canon compliant up through about the end of 3x19. Also please come talk to me on tumblr about my tall handsome billionaire boyfriend Ray Palmer.

**one.**

Contrary to what books and TV and movies might make you believe, it’s possible for your dad to walk out on you when you’re seven years old and not be completely broken up over it. Sure, it’s not the most pleasant childhood memory, but Felicity hasn’t grown up with some sort of deep-seated daddy issues. She knows the sting of someone she loved and cared for abandoning her, and she never wants to feel that again, but isn’t that a universal feeling?

But she knows that people leave. She’s seen it, especially in the last few years, she’s seen Walter leave, and Moira leave, and Barry leave, and Sara leave, and Roy leave, and Oliver leave. Some of these people came back. Some of them didn’t.

When things are at their most dangerous, Felicity has to hold her breath while Oliver and John stomp up the Foundry stairs. If she doesn’t breathe until they’re out the door, then they’ll come back to her. It’s those nights she’s seven years old again, watching her dad back out of the driveway, never to return.

 

Thea goes into the Lazarus Pit. Thea comes out of the Lazarus Pit.

So does Sara.

It doesn’t make much sense to Felicity, so on the plane home, after Sara and Thea fall asleep with Oliver watching them like it would kill him to look away (too soon? probably, Felicity thinks, but, you know) Felicity pulls out her tablet and scrolls through everything she can find about Lazarus, the League of Assassins, Nanda Parbat, everything. She doesn’t realize how long she’s been reading until John nudges her arm. “You’re going to go cross-eyed.”

She looks up at him and blinks a few times confusedly. “I don’t like mysteries,” she says.

John laughs quietly. “What about when the mystery is that our friend is alive again?”

“I performed her autopsy,” Felicity says raggedly. It’s something she can’t talk about without getting that lump in her throat, that painful lump that means she’s going to ugly cry.

“Hey.” John puts his arm around her shoulders and squeezes a little. It’s a strangely intimate move for John, but Felicity needs it right now; she’s tired and relieved and scared and too many things. She wants to be home in her pajamas. She wants Ray.

 

Here’s what happened:

Ra’s al Ghul did everything he could to “persuade” Oliver to join the League. That included stabbing Thea in the throat until she was basically a human vegetable.

(Felicity would like to state for the record: if she never has to think about a member of the Queen family getting stabbed again, it’ll be too soon.)

“I’m out of options,” Oliver said in that horrible sad desperate exasperated voice. “This is Thea. This is my _sister_. I told you, I said that I would do _anything_ to save her.”

John nodded and Felicity looked back and forth between the two of them. Panic began to bubble up in her stomach. “So we’ll go with you,” she said. “Right?”

“Right,” John echoed.

There wasn’t time to argue, for which Felicity was glad. There were Things to do, Arrangements to make, Sara and Lyla and Laurel to kiss goodbye. Felicity volunteered to run over to Oliver and Thea’s and get some things for her for when she woke up. In the car, her hands shaking as hard as her heart was beating, she made a phone call.

“Can you please meet me? I need you.”

 

The place was a mess: there was a huge, horrible blood stain on the floor, broken glass everywhere, things were strewn left and right. “Whoa,” Ray said as he took in the scene.

“Whoa is right.” As they rushed upstairs and Felicity threw a change of clothes for both Oliver and Thea; toothbrushes; and a framed picture of Moira, Oliver, and Thea into a bag, she gave Ray the rundown on what exactly was going on.

“And John and I are going to go with him—and Malcolm, I guess, but he barely counts as a human—because we can save her but we need to figure out how to save Oliver as well, and I don’t know how we’re going to do any of this and I’m _scared_ and I hate being scared and—”

“Hey.” Ray pulled her in close and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s going to be okay. You are the smartest and strongest person I know, and you’ll get through this. What do you want me to do?”

Felicity thought back to what he had said about being a true partner. Maybe she didn’t understand what that meant at the time; it’s been a long time since she didn’t have to keep any secrets, but to cry into Ray’s arms, to have him ask how to help, this was what it meant. And Felicity was glad she took the offer.

“Can we take your jet?”

“Of course. Take the jet, save your friends, but do me one favor.”

“What?”

She pulled away to look up at him and he smiled sadly. “Come back. Preferably in one piece.”

 

There was a ceremony. There was chanting and candles and all sorts of scary assassins with swords and other deadly weapons. Felicity was hyper-aware of exactly three things:

One, the way Oliver’s jaw was clenched so tightly it looked like he was going to break all his teeth.

Two, she was going to have to (somehow) say goodbye to him.

Three, this was where Sara used to live.

She wasn’t sure what made her think about Sara, but she did, and in retrospect it’s a little weird and freaky and too coincidental for comfort. But this whole thing had started with Sara’s death, really, and this was where Sara learned it all, where she met Nyssa, where she came back to after leaving Starling last year. Felicity missed her something fierce, not because they were particularly close, but because she was fairly certain they could have been.

They lowered Thea’s lifeless body into the water. Felicity held her breath. The ground shook. Felicity counted to twenty-three. Then there was a splash.

Thea rose to the surface, sputtering, frantically searching around.

Oliver and Malcolm pulled her out and she sank into Oliver’s arms, her chest heaving, but it was _heaving_ , she was _alive_.

Ra’s moved toward Oliver, opened his mouth to say something.

But the ground shook again.

The pit began to bubble.

Sara rose to the surface.

 

There’s a welcoming brigade waiting for them when they land: Laurel, Nyssa, and Captain Lance are all gathered around the tarmac anxiously, as if Oliver is going to get off the plane and tell them all it was a big joke and Sara isn’t with them, alive and whole, if not a little confused and tired; Lyla, baby Sara strapped to her chest, is relief personified; and in the back, trying and failing to make himself as small as possible while Laurel and Nyssa cry, is Ray.

Felicity wants to run down the plane steps to him, but she lets Oliver and John help Thea and Sara down first. They both slept for most of the ride home, but each time they woke up they needed to be reminded of what had happened. When Sara asked, Felicity took over; Oliver looked a little green when he started to tell the story of what had happened in September.

“To confirm all of our long-held suspicions,” Felicity started, “Malcolm Merlyn is a huge asshole who got you killed. And then, well, it’s a really long story. But lucky for you, I remember all of the details.”

“I came out of the Lazarus Pit?” Sara asked. “But how?”

“We don’t know. Ra’s doesn’t know. But the fact is that you did, and the League had a doctor examine you and there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. Not even a spot where the, uh, where it happened.”

Laurel and Captain Lance surround Sara, tugging her gently from John’s grasp and into their arms, where there are a lot of tears and hugs and words Felicity can’t make out. Nyssa watches, biting her lip. Felicity throws her a wink as she makes her way past. (Hey, if Sara loves Nyssa, and Laurel and Nyssa are somehow now BFFs, then Felicity can finally admit that she thinks Nyssa is beyond cool.)

“I thought of bringing you flowers, because that’s what you do when you meet someone at the airport, but I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate in this whole, ‘I’m glad you came back from your showdown with a bunch of assassins and that your previously dead friend is alive’ situation,” Ray says as Felicity (finally) makes her way to him.

She tugs on his shirt for him to meet her in a kiss. “For a situation like that, I think dozens and dozens of roses are called for.”

“They’re at home,” he says. “There’s also wine and a lot of ice cream. I had to be prepared for all scenarios.”

Felicity isn’t sure if he means his place or hers by _home_ , but there’s a little jump in her belly at the word, the idea that home is a place they could share, together, the both of theirs.

“She’s okay?” Ray nods over toward where Oliver is helping Thea into the back seat of the car.

“I think so. As okay as you can be. She has Oliver to take care of her.” Felicity looks around at the reunions and realizes that no one was waiting for Oliver. The thought makes her feel a little cold, and she watches as he puts their bags in the trunk.

“I’m just going to, um—”

“Yeah, of course. I’ll be right here.” Ray’s voice is overly bright and Felicity knows: now that all this is over, now that she can breathe again, she’s going to have to have an actual serious conversation with her boyfriend about their relationship.

(Does the plane want to take another trip to Nanda Parbat, or...?)

 

Maseo was the first to move. He pulled Sara out of the water, cradled her coughing form in his arms. John moved next, helping Maseo stand her up. Oliver didn’t move.

The room erupted in shouts and screams and Thea was already crying and Felicity didn’t understand what was happening: how could Sara be wearing the same outfit she died in when Laurel had taken the jacket and the mask and the wig? How could her body be here when she had watched it be buried in Starling Cemetery? Who was this person, this Sara look-alike, who was somehow trapped in the water?

“Taer-al Safer has returned from the dead,” Ra’s yelled. “Al Sah-Him has returned her!”

Then Felicity was being pushed, Maseo shoving her, Thea, and John out of the chamber.

“League members only,” he said. He had cold eyes, eyes that had seen too much, but Felicity knew that he was someone important to Oliver somehow. John had mentioned something once, how Maseo was Oliver’s friend, and no matter what Ra’s had done to him, there was a part of him that still loved Oliver.

Felicity knew the look.

Maseo closed her and John and Thea in a small room off the chamber. “What just happened?” Felicity asked.

“I don’t know,” John said. “But it’s either really good or really bad.”

Thea was still breathing heavily, leaning against Felicity, as if she didn’t have the energy to hold herself up. “Was that Sara?”

“I think it was,” Felicity said.

“But how? It’s not like you brought her body here with you, too, did you?”

John searched the room, probably for camera or listening devices, but most likely for another way out: Maseo had locked the door behind him.

“No, as far as I knew, she was still six feet under,” John said. “But she was in the League, and as much as I wish I did, I don’t understand any of this. But for now we need a new plan. We need to figure out how to get Oliver and go.”

 

Oliver’s gaze travels between Felicity and Ray as she approaches. “Hey,” he says once she reaches him.

“Hey. Look, I just wanted to make sure you were okay before you went home. That was... well, that was a lot, and if you need anything else I really hope you’ll tell me or let me know or—”

“Felicity,” he interrupts. “I’m fine. I promise.”

She laughs a little and looks down at her shoes. “You always are, aren’t you?”

“Somehow I make out okay,” he smirks with a half-shrug.

Something about this feels final, in a way; for the first time since their disastrous first (and only) date, there isn’t a threat hanging over their heads. This could be the moment where he finally allows himself to love her and for her to love him. For the longest time, this was the exact second Felicity was waiting for. She could turn around and break up with Ray, she could go home with Oliver and Thea, she could wake up tomorrow morning in his bed, nestled beneath his arm.

But she won’t.

She knows she won’t, because she knows how this works. There is some reason they will never be together, and maybe Felicity doesn’t need to know that reason, now or ever. And frankly, she’s a little tired. It’s exhausting, loving him, being loved by him. _I don’t want to be a woman that you love_ , she told him once, and it might have been a cruel thing to say, but it was a true thing. Felicity is strong, she knows she is strong, has learned of and forged her strength over the last few years. And now she thinks she’s strong enough to make this decision, to go back to Ray and to learn to love him in the way he so greatly deserves.

“Thank you. For coming, for helping, for... for everything,” he says in that low voice.

“Don’t say that like we’re never going to see each other again,” she jokes.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. You can come by tomorrow and see Thea, if you want.”

She nods. “I want. And I will. And I’ll come by to see you.”

He looks like he wants to say something, and she bites the inside of her cheek, because her strength might wane if he tells her he loves her again. It might.

“Thank Ray for me, will you,” he says instead. “For loaning me the jet. And you.”

“I’m not something to be _loaned_ ,” she snaps half-heartedly. “I make my own decisions.”

He huffs. “That you do. I’ll see you tomorrow, Felicity. Get home safe.”

 

After what seemed like an eternity, the door was yanked open and Oliver and Sara were there. Oliver had an arm around Sara, who was pale and breathing as heavily as Thea. “Let’s go. Now.”

“What happened?”

“Not now.” Oliver tucked Thea under his other arm and starts off, leaving Felicity and John to trail behind, confused.

John grabbed Felicity’s hand and they ran, almost, as quickly as Thea and Sara could go, through the maze of dimly lit hallways until Felicity finally smelled fresh air.

She felt like she had been trapped underground or in a cave for days or weeks or months. The air was cool and sharp and the plane was waiting, stairs down. Oliver pulled Sara and Thea up and as Felicity stepped inside she couldn’t help but look back. She expected to be chased, to have dozens and dozens of League members running after them, brandishing swords.

There was no one.

 

To Felicity’s relief, Ray pulls up to her apartment. She groans as she gets out of the car, already dreaming about her most favorite, most comfortable pajamas. “You mentioned something about wine and ice cream?” she asks as she unlocks the door.

“Uh, and flowers.”

This is a bit of an understatement: Felicity’s living room looks like a florist’s shop, flowers of every shape, size, and color are gathered in various vases on what seems like every available surface. She lets out a little squeak of surprise and Ray looks at her unsurely.

“Too much?”

“Not even a little.” She reaches up to kiss him. She likes that Ray goes overboard about things like this. She likes that he just wants to give and give and give and make people happy and keep them safe. He has a big heart. She doesn’t want to break it.

“Do you want me to go?” Ray murmurs as he pulls away.

“What? Why would I want you to go?”

“I just thought maybe you would want to be alone?”

She takes his hand and pulls him into the kitchen. “If you leave, I’m going to be really mad at you.”

He laughs and holds his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay, fine. I’ll stay. Are you hungry? We can order take-out. Or, this is your house, I shouldn’t be telling you what we can and cannot do. But if you’re hungry, I will gladly order you some food. Or, if you want to eat ice cream, I bought a lot of it. Or, if you want to go to bed, I won’t try anything.”

Felicity hopes that her babbling is even half as endearing as his. “Ray,” she says. “I want to put very comfortable clothes on. I want to drink a lot of wine. I want to tell you about everything that happened. And then I want to go to bed. And, depending on how late it is and how tired I am, I want you to try something.”

“Can we talk about—?”

“Yes,” she cuts in. “I want to talk about that.”

She changes while he pours them wine and once her rattiest sweatpants are on, her first sip is more of a gulp.

Ray moves some of the flowers so they can sit on the couch. “I said I love you and you responded with Jell-o,” he blurts out.

She pauses with the glass to her lips. “Yes. I did. And I’m sorry.”

“Are you in love with Oliver?”

“I don’t really know anymore,” she says honestly. “I thought I was, and then I didn’t want to be, and now I know that no matter what happens, it’s always going to be too complicated to work out. But I care about you. A lot. You make me happy and you’re funny and smart and sweet. You’re a good person. You’re good _to_ me. I couldn’t say it back because I don’t want to say it when I don’t mean it. But I don’t want to lose you. I _can’t_ lose you.”

He sits next to her and wraps an arm around her shoulders. “You’re not going to lose me. If you want to be here, I want to be here. I want to make this work, Felicity.”

She smiles and snuggles into his side a little. “Me too. Can we go somewhere? After I’m sure that Thea and Sara are going to be okay? Just you, me, maybe some sun?”

“We can go anywhere you want. And I do mean that. You want an island? I’ll buy you an island. I can do that, you know.”

“I know,” she laughs. “But please don’t buy me an island. Maybe in the future. I’ll tell you when.”

  


**two.**

When Ray found out, it turned out to not be the end of the world. The opposite, almost, really, because Felicity keeps secrets day in and day out and she’s gotten pretty good at it; John has a saying: “secrets have weight,” and her entire relationship with Ray was about to sink to the bottom of the ocean because of them.

She went home with Ray that night, and when they stepped inside and she took off her coat, she turned to him with a sad smile. “I’m going to answer any questions you have. Any and all. Because I keep enough secrets in my life and I don’t want to keep them from you anymore.”

His face lit up when she said that, like she’d just given him a million dollars (or, a trillion? a quadrillion? how much money would it actually take to impress Ray Palmer?). “Just, tell me what you think I should know.”

He poured them wine and she explained: began at the beginning, with a laptop riddled with bullet holes and a kidnapped boss, the search for the truth about the Undertaking, Sara and Nyssa and the whole League of Assassins, Slade Wilson and Mirakuru, a homemade autopsy on her friend’s lifeless body, Oliver dying and coming back, Oliver and John and Roy and Laurel and Lyla and baby Sara and how they’re all her family, how she loves them unconditionally and uncontrollably, and how she would sacrifice herself again and again to save them.

“Wow,” was all that Ray could say.

She nodded and took a few deep breaths, a few deep sips of wine. It was the red, strong stuff she liked. The stuff she knew Ray knew she liked. It was a small, tiny, almost unnoticeable gesture, but Felicity was just overwhelmed enough to feel it bring the sting of tears to her eyes.

“I have one question,” Ray said finally. “I know why I want to protect the city. I lost the one person I thought I couldn’t stand to lose, and I want to protect anyone else from having to feel that pain. And you love these people, but why do you do it?”

Felicity pressed her lips together. “When Oliver was... gone, I had to figure that out. Because if there was no Arrow, no vendetta to avenge and make the city a better place, what was I even doing this all for? My life before all this was very small. I’m not complaining, because it was a life I built for myself, but I always knew I wanted to do something bigger. And here was this opportunity to do good things and to save the city and put everything I learned to a purpose that was more than just fixing QC computers. I feel like, I never feel more like _me_ then when I’m down there in that basement guiding Oliver and John and Roy and Laurel through how to save the day.”

There was a look on Ray’s face that Felicity couldn’t exactly define, and it scared her a bit because she knew that somehow it was a look of awe and love and devotion and a few other things. Ever since Oliver left to fight Ra’s, there had been a bit of steeliness inside of her, like everything that was once warm froze over. When Ray looked at her like this, she felt it all start to melt.

“So I should count myself very fortunate that you chose to partner up with me as well?” he joked half-heartedly.

She leaned in to kiss him; Ray is big and strong but there’s something so soft about him, like sinking into a pillow-top mattress with down blankets fresh out of the dryer. She liked the way they fit together, the way he has to lean down to meet her mouth, the stretch in her neck as she tips her face upward.

 

Malcolm had warned them that the Lazarus Pit’s water would cause the Thea that sprang up to be different than the Thea they had lowered in. Felicity waited, checked in at least twice a day. Things had been so bad for so long that she still carried that sense of foreboding around with her. Thea and Sara would wake up one day and not know who they were. They would kill Oliver and Laurel in their sleep. They would only eat raw meat from animals they caught themselves.

For a while, they all believed Malcolm was wrong. But he wasn’t.

It was almost like the Mirakuru. Suddenly, Thea could take John down in a matter of minutes. With her hands. It was sort of scary to watch teeny tiny Thea throw John on the mat. Felicity was pretty sure John thought so, too.

Sara was the same: faster and stronger than she had been before death. To watch Thea and Sara together was insane.

Ray found them an old warehouse previously owned by Queen Consolidated at the very edge of the Glades and they set up a new shop; outfitted with the new, latest technology and a few extra mannequins for the now-almost plethora of vigilante costumes they use on a nightly basis. Oliver wasn’t allowed back out yet, warned to lay low for the time being, a direction that he wasn’t taking very well. But, now that Thea and Sara could both kick his ass, he only pouted a little bit.

Felicity watched with wonder as Laurel, Sara, and Thea suited up every night, John as their intel. “Sort of like Charlie’s Angels,” Felicity quipped. “Johnny’s Angels.”

Oliver didn’t find that as amusing as Felicity did.

But still, it was a routine, and it worked. Felicity’s fingers flew over the keyboard of her new computer setup, shouted out instructions over the comms, and made sure Oliver didn’t punch a hole through anything, and then went home to Ray at night. All the best parts of her life were in order, finally.

Unable to go out there himself, Oliver took to teaching: vigilante school, Felicity called it. He showed Thea how to channel her strength. He helped Sara adjust to her new body. He made sure Laurel could handle herself, and—to Felicity’s surprise and also happiness—he taught Ray how to rely on more than the ATOM suit.

“You’re really good at that,” Felicity said one night after John, Thea, Laurel, and Sara ran off to bust up a drug shipment.

“At what?” Oliver asked distractedly. He leaned over Felicity to scroll through the surveillance of the docks they had set up earlier.

She playfully shoved him out of the way and took back control of her keyboard. “At teaching. At helping them all be able to out there and do what you can’t. Even Ray.”

“Yeah, well,” he mumbled, “I’d be much better at going out there and doing it myself.”

“Hey.” She reached out to grab his arm and squeezed reassuringly. “You are still making a difference, you know. You’re helping in the best way you can. I know it’s frustrating for you, but it’s not forever. This is all temporary until things die down a bit, and then you’ll be back to giving me heart attacks on a nightly basis.”

He looked down at her hand and she pulled it back quickly. “But not as the Arrow.”

“No,” she conceded, “not as the Arrow. But... okay, so you know how you always believed that they were two different people, Oliver and the Arrow? Maybe now you’ll realize what I’ve been telling you this entire time. They’re not. There’s just you, just Oliver.”

He drew in a deep sigh and settled into his chair across from hers. “I didn’t want this for her. Or any of them. Shit, next thing you know I’m going to be teaching baby Sara how to shoot a damn arrow.”

Felicity laughed at the thought. “I think Dig and Lyla might actually murder you first. But look, you’ve got to realize that Thea and Sara and Laurel, they’re people. They’re adults. And they make their own decisions and you can’t do anything but love and support them.”

“You’re just on an eternal quest to prove that you’re always right, aren’t you?”

She preened. “Well, it’s true. And it’s about damn time you realized it.”

“Thank you. I feel like I’m constantly thanking you or apologizing to you. Maybe I could do it forever and it will never be enough.”

“Or, you could stop doing both and save them for when they’re really necessary. Oliver, you’re my best friend. I know things between us might be... whatever, but that’s always going to be the case. And that’s what best friends do, they help and they support and they argue. And I will continue to do all those things for you for the rest of time, because you can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“Even argue?” Oliver asked with a smile.

“Especially argue,” she returned with a grin.

 

The thought of getting back on that jet so soon makes Felicity a little nauseous, so she asks Ray if they can turn their vacation into a road trip. He’s been tiptoeing around her lately, like if he doesn’t do everything she asks and then some, she’s going to turn around and walk out the door. It makes her sad and frustrated—mostly at herself—so to prepare she does things like buy a new dress she hopes he likes and make them a ton of playlists to listen to and plot stops that will interest him. At this point, he’s probably been everywhere and seen everything, but when your boyfriend is a multi-billionaire, Felicity thinks, it’s the thought that counts.

They leave on a Wednesday morning as the sun rises, packing what they can fit and vowing to buy what they can’t. Ray offers to take first shift, and Felicity settles in the passenger seat, pulling her legs up underneath her.

“I’m going to talk,” she says, “and I want you to listen. Then when it’s my turn to drive, we can switch.”

As they drive south she starts from the very beginning, further back from where she’d started last time. She describes the house in Vegas where she lived with both her parents, what it was like to watch her dad leave, being bullied by the popular girls in middle school. She tells him about MIT and her attempts at hacktivism and Cooper. She tells him her favorite color and her favorite food and how she hates kangaroos but always wanted a puppy growing up. He laughs at her embarrassing stories and squeezes her hand during her sad ones. She talks until she has nothing left to say.

“Thank you,” he says and she can’t seem to form any sort of response other than to bring his hand to her lips.

“Get off at the next exit. I’m starving, and there’s almost nothing I want more in life than to hear stories about baby Ray.”

 

“Oliver told me a few things,” Sara said as she wrapped her hands around the steaming mug of tea, “but you know how selective he is about the truth.”

Felicity scoffed and rolled her eyes. “You probably still know more than I do. Like exactly what happened with Ra’s. You’re telling me he really was just like ‘leave Malcolm and you can all go along your merry way’?”

Sara shrugged. “I think so. I don’t really remember much. I was on a rooftop, then I saw Thea, and then a bunch of nothing, and the next thing I can see really clearly is being on the plane home.”

It had been quite a while since Felicity had had anything that could possibly be construed as “girl time,” maybe a quick chat with Laurel or moping around John and Lyla’s while he wasn’t home. But now, a week after they got home from Nanda Parbat, Felicity took a half-day from work to go sit with Sara while Laurel went into the office to get some things done.

“I searched through every crumb of the internet I could find, and I don’t have an explanation,” Felicity said. “I wish I did.”

“I’m here,” Sara smiled. “If I’ve learned anything, it’s that some things can’t be explained. I’m just going to count my blessings and enjoy it.”

Felicity looked down into her tea and watched the steam curl up over the edges of the mug. “I hope this isn’t totally lame of me to say, but... I missed you a lot. I really needed another woman around here these last few months. Besides Laurel, of course, but she’s been going through her own thing.”

“You’re cute. And thank you for watching out for Laurel. She’s okay, right?”

“I really think she is. She’s tough. Must be a Lance thing.”

Sara turned her gaze to the ceiling and drew in a deep breath. “I can’t believe _Laurel_ , out there, beating people up and learning to fight with _Nyssa_. Although I suppose I shouldn’t complain that my sister and my—whatever are getting along.”

“You and Nyssa aren’t together?” Felicity asked.

“It’s complicated,” Sara said with a vague shake of her head.

“Now you sound like Oliver.”

Sara made a face and Felicity laughed. “Speaking of, I heard you’re the one with a new rich boyfriend. When am I going to meet him?”

This beautiful bit of normalcy in Felicity’s life did not go unnoticed. All she wanted, from the very beginning, was to be able to show her boyfriend off to her friends. Oliver and John and Roy and Laurel: they never wanted anything to do with Ray, and Felicity understood, she got it. It didn’t bother her on a personal level, but on more broad level. So many things in her day-to-day didn’t make any sense. To have something so small, to be able to introduce Ray to Sara and maybe go out for a drink or dinner or even coffee would be beyond amazing.

It was, after all, a very large part of the reason she brought Ray to Central City in the first place.

“You really want to meet him?” Felicity asked.

“Has Ollie been giving you a hard time?”

“A lot of stuff has happened.” To Felicity’s horror, tears began to spring in the corners of her eyes. “Don’t die again, okay?”

Sara leaned over to gather Felicity in her arms. “I’ll try my hardest. I promise.”

 

They end up in Miami, on a long stretch of beach with white sand and blue water. Felicity wants to lay in the sun with a drink and her boyfriend both nearby (preferably: the drink something cold and strong and her boyfriend with as little clothes as possible). She wants to be normal, if only for a few hours.

(She has nightmares about her dead friend springing up out of a pool of water in a dank cave of hundreds of assassins.)

Ray promises to keep things low-key, so their hotel is only outrageously beautiful instead of impossibly so. And even though Felicity is exhausted from driving, even though the bed looks soft and cozy enough to curl up for days and days, she rushes into the bathroom to freshen up and change into her bathing suit.

“Good god, stunning is a complete understatement,” Ray says as she steps out of the bathroom.

Felicity poses and tosses her ponytail over her shoulder playfully. She meets Ray in the middle of the room and wraps her arms around his neck as he palms her hip. The feel of his hand against her bare skin never fails to get her heartbeat up, even just a little, just enough for it to bump and skip against her chest.

“Are you sure you want to go to the beach instead of staying here?” Ray murmurs in her ear. “Because this bikini is quite the distraction.”

She pulls away with a wicked grin. It _is_ quite a tiny bikini, bought one day with the hopes that one day there would be time for something like this, all pink and purple polka dots. “Come on. I’ll even let you rub sunscreen on my back.”

Ray groans.

 

Ray gets a sunburn, right on the tip of his nose. Felicity kisses it better and then smoothes aloe over it. In two days it’s itchy and Felicity can’t help but laugh as he wiggles it uncomfortably over dinner.

 

Felicity slept with Ray before their first date; her grandmother would be appalled and her mother would squeal with pride. So when she woke alone in his bed the next morning, only to see him round the corner into the bedroom with two very large steaming mugs of coffee in hand, she didn’t think of the word _boyfriend_ or _relationship_ or _label_. She was thinking that she was wonderfully sore in all the right places, and that coffee smelled absolutely heavenly, and she was grateful for billionaires and their ridiculous good overpriced coffee.

“Good morning,” Ray said as he handed her a mug. “I, uh, hope you slept well.”

She took the mug from him and smiled. “I slept very well, thank you very much.”

“Look, Felicity, I need to tell you—”

“Oh my god. Really? Are you giving me the ‘that was great sex but I’m a true loner and this can’t happen again’ thing before I’ve even had a _sip_ of this coffee?” Eyebrows furrowed, she took a quick slurp and, just as she’d expected, it was practically perfect.

“What?” Ray asked, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“This isn’t the part where you tell me that since we work together and that you’re on a one-man mission to save the city we can never be together and this was just a one-time thing?”

“ _No_ , this is the part where I tell you that I wish I had gotten to take you to dinner first, but I’m very happy that last night happened and I hope that you’ll let me take you on a proper date tonight. If you want.”

“Oh.” Felicity bit her lip and narrowed her eyes. “You’re sure?”

Ray laughed. “Sure that I want to take you to dinner? Yes, Felicity Smoak, I want nothing more than to take you to dinner.” He glanced at where she held the sheets against her chest. “Well, almost nothing more.”

She felt her face flush.

“Has this sort of thing happened to you before?”

“Um, you could say that. Sorry. Anyway, I would love to go to dinner with you. On a date. A real, proper date.”

_My last date ended with an explosion_ , she wanted to say, _and then I got dumped in a hospital so the bar is set._

He took her to dinner at a restaurant on the edge of the city she had never been to; one where waiters wore folded cloth napkins draped over their arms and topped off her wine glass seemingly every time she took a sip. The food was overly fancy but also delicious, and Ray must have asked her fifty times if everything was to her liking. It was all so amazingly normal, so routine and beautiful. Halfway through her meal, Felicity realized she was having _fun_ , that the floaty butterfly feelings in her stomach weren’t anxiety or sadness or fear, they were happiness. She was happy to be here with Ray, to sit across from him and listen to him talk about work at the ATOM project, but also about vacations he’d taken and things he still wanted to see and do.

“I don’t want to presume,” Ray said as they stood to leave, “but would you like to come over?”

Felicity looked down at her phone: a text from John saying that all was quiet. Nothing from Oliver. Not that she’d expected anything, what with him and Thea on Lian Yu. What with him deciding that a partnership with the man who was responsible for Sara’s death was more important than a partnership with her.

“Just for a bit,” he amended quickly.

“Just for a bit,” she echoed.

 

_Does something ever happen to you that is so incredibly mundane and normal that it makes you want to cry?_ Felicity texts Barry.

_Yes,_ he replies. _Did you ever think that would be the case?_

_With my boring life? Never._

_Me neither. Hold onto those mundane things, and I’ll do the same._

 

“I would like to dance would the most beautiful woman here,” Ray said, pressing a hand to her elbow.

“Lyla’s already dancing with Oliver,” Felicity replied automatically.

Ray laughed. “Okay, point taken. I’m not supposed to say that anyone looks more beautiful than the bride, but... keep it between us?”

She took his hand and let him lead her onto the dance floor. “I think I can do that.”

As he rested one hand on the small of her back, she snuggled into him a bit. His chin brushed the top of her head and she smiled; a slow, blues-y song played and Dig was dancing with Laurel and everyone looked so happy.

“Your friends don’t like me much, do they?” Ray asked quietly.

Felicity lifted her head up to look at him. “What? Why do you say that?”

“They didn’t seem too pleased when I walked in with you. And John threatened to have me murdered.”

“John did _what_?”

“Well, wait, let me clarify that one. He said that if I hurt you he would have me murdered. That’s something I can accept. But there are a lot of people out there in the world who don’t like me, and I’ve gotten pretty good at sensing when they don’t.”

Felicity squeezed his hand. “Hey. Don’t take it personally, okay? My friends are... complicated. But John will murder you. He’s not joking about that.”

“If I ever hurt you, I’ll welcome it.” He pressed a kiss to her temple and lingered there a moment. “I understand, you know. Why they don’t like me. It’s fine, as long as you do.”

“I think I’ll keep you,” she said with a wry smile.

They were quiet for the rest of the song, and Felicity thought about how badly she wanted these two parts of herself to merge. So they didn’t like Ray. That was fine, that was understandable. Felicity got it. But she just wanted to be able to do something normal, like go out for drinks with her boyfriend and her best friends. She wanted to be able to bring Ray over to John and Lyla’s house for dinner.

Felicity is good at compartmentalizing. She can put people and places and things and events into little boxes and leave them there, separated by walls so they don’t overlap. Her jobs--both of them--were separate, always. If she needed to run Arrow intel during the hours of nine to five, she used her personal tablet. If a Palmer Tech emergency popped up after business hours, she took the call in the alley behind Verdant. Everything in its place.

But people don’t stay in boxes. She thought she might have tried to tell Oliver that once, long ago, when he was frustrated over keeping secrets and telling lies. People aren’t chess pieces that you can move at will.

So Felicity pretended not to notice that Oliver’s face did that thing when she said she needed the night off to do something with Ray. She smiled apologetically when romantic dinners were cut short by bank robberies, watching the gears in Ray’s head turn as she came up with an excuse even Oliver would be ashamed of.

Taking Ray to John’s wedding was supposed to alleviate some of this weird tension. Oliver was supposed to see that Ray is good-hearted. John and Lyla were supposed to be on her side. Roy was supposed to size Ray up.

None of these things happened. Felicity should have expected this, shouldn’t be disappointed. But she was. As she spun in Ray’s arms, she was.

 

“Tell me a story.” Felicity lies on her side and swipes a fingertip across Ray’s mouth.

“Okay, once upon a time—”

“No,” she laughs, “a real story. About you.”

He catches her hand in his and presses a kiss against her fingers. “There was a time where I never thought I would be happy again. I thought the rest of my life would just be motions that I would go through. It’s why I bought Queen Consolidated, really, just to have something to do.”

“And now?”

“I was going to fake it till I made it, but... I don’t have to fake it anymore.”

She grins and buries her face in Ray’s chest. She wonders what he was like before, when Anna was still alive. She wonders if she would still this same tug toward him. If Felicity was a psychologist she would also wonder if there’s some part of her that’s attracted to tragedy.

 

Felicity hadn’t planned on staying over again, that second night at Ray’s. She went back to his apartment after dinner and he showed her some of his paintings. He talked about work. He outlined more about his plans for the ATOM project. He asked her about herself.

He was obviously still nervous.

“You know,” she said as he asked her yet again if dinner was okay, “I wasn’t sure they let non-billionaires into that restaurant. Aren’t you breaking some sort of sacred code?”

“Yeah, well, the general rule is that you get a plus-one,” he replied without missing a beat. “Any more than that and they give you a strike. Three strikes and you’re out.”

He looked almost amazed at the quip, at the fact that they were back to bantering again.

“So, if you grew up in Vegas and went to college in Boston, was that the first time you had seen snow?” He asked the question quickly, as if he needed to keep the conversation moving or else lose her interest entirely.

“Yes! It was! Okay, let me tell you this story about how I didn’t own a winter coat and tried to walk through a blizzard in a cardigan.”

Ray laughed and Felicity slipped off her shoes. She decided to stay a while.

 

Felicity isn’t used to being able to take pictures. Not of the people she’s with, anyway. Sure, there were a few group photos at John and Lyla’s wedding, and her phone is brimming with shots of baby Sara from all angles. But she certainly can’t take selfies in the Foundry. She can’t snap a picture of Oliver and Roy sleeping in full vigilante gear. Not even for herself: she knows better than anyone that once those things exist, they can come back and hurt you again and again.

So when Ray asks a stranger passing by on the beach to take a picture of the two of them, Felicity balks a little before relaxing. Oh yes, she reminds herself, this is a thing people do. Ray wraps an arm around her shoulder and pulls her in close. She grins, happy and content.

The stranger hands Ray’s phone back and Ray thanks him. “This is nice.”

She looks like a version of herself she almost doesn’t recognize. She wants to run to a drugstore right then and there and print the photo out, dozens and dozens of copies, to frame and hang everywhere, proof that this handsome wonderful man loves her and they are a normal couple who goes on vacation together.

“Very nice,” Felicity concurs.

(She takes a picture, later that night, of Ray sleeping: his form on the bed curled around where she had been, arm extended as though he was reaching for her.)

 

On the day they’ve planned to leave Ray wakes her up with a pepper of kisses to her shoulder. “Come on,” he whispers, “back to the ol’ grind.”

She groans and rolls over to capture his mouth with hers. “Let’s quit our jobs and live here forever. You’re a billionaire, you can do that.”

“And when all your friends come after me and kill me for taking away the best member of their team? I’m pretty sure Sara and Thea could absolutely break me in half.”

Felicity laughs. “They could. I’ll have to remember that in case you ever break my heart.”

His face turns serious. “Oh, Felicity Smoak, I do firmly believe it would be the other way around.”

There’s a lump in her throat and she swallows it down. “Ray,” she says sadly. “Ray, I’m right here.” She frames his face with her hands and kisses him slowly and softly.

“I’m here,” she says into his mouth.

“I’m here,” she says into his chest.

“I’m here,” she says when he’s inside her.

Later, while they wait for the valet to bring the car around, Felicity slips her hand into Ray’s and squeezes. “I’m here,” she whispers.

 

Oliver, Nyssa, and Sara go into business together.

It sounds like the start of a terrible joke, but it’s not. Felicity spends a lot of time trying to think of a punchline.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said about me being good at teaching,” Oliver tells her, “and I’m currently very unemployed, as are Sara and Nyssa. So we thought—”

Sara clears her throat pointedly.

“— _Sara_ thought that there are other ways to help people aside from beating up criminals. And we’re not really good at anything else. So we’re opening a gym.”

“Self-defense classes taught by Nyssa al-Ghul,” Sara says around a laugh.

Nyssa purses her lips. “I’ve never had a job before.”

“Except the whole assassinating people thing,” Thea jokes.

“What does Captain Lance think about this?” John asks, trying to fight a grin.

“Dad loves any reason for me to stay in town _almost_ as much as he hates Ollie,” Sara says.

Enough time has passed where Felicity can laugh at that one. “Why didn’t you just go back to running Verdant?”

Thea holds up a hand. “No way. Verdant is one hundred percent mine. Ollie is terrible at running it.”

“It’s true,” Oliver admits.

“Wait, wait, I’ve got it!” Felicity exclaims. “A vigilante and two assassins walk into a bar...”

 

Felicity knocks on the door and rocks a little on her heels. There’s a tiny bead of sweat on her upper lip and she carefully dabs it away.

“Hey,” Ray leans down to whisper in her ear, “don’t be nervous. We brought the good wine.”

Lyla opens the door with a smile and hug for Felicity. “Hi guys. Ray, nice to see you again.”

“Likewise.” Ray keeps his hand on the small of Felicity’s back and it steadies her as they follow Lyla inside.

Baby Sara, in her playpen, stands up and giggles when she sees Felicity, and Felicity can’t help but rush over to pick her up and spread kisses all over her chubby cheeks. The vigilante life leaves little time for ceremony, but there was a baptism, small and rushed during the precious crime-free daylight hours. Godmother is not a role Felicity thought she would take—it’s not a Jewish tradition and John and Lyla assured her she could say no without any hard feelings—but it’s one she relishes in.

Her godparent counterpart comes out of the kitchen with John and Felicity wonders if there will ever be a day he doesn’t look at her that way; she thinks maybe, she thinks there will soon be someone else, the way there has always been someone else.

He shakes Ray’s hand (there’s a teeny tiny grimace on his face and Felicity knows Oliver’s grip is too strong for a “how are you” handshake so she rolls her eyes pointedly) and informs them all that John has been teaching him to cook, and much like him trying to teach John archery, it is not going so well.

Felicity laughs and then there’s another knock on the door, and Thea and Sara and Laurel are here and everyone coos over baby Sara and sits down to eat John’s dinner and this is all Felicity wanted: everyone she loves in one place. Halfway through, Ray reaches over to pour her more wine and gives her a wink. She feels more full and fortunate than she ever thought possible.

 

Felicity realizes it one night, after a mission gone particularly badly: leftovers from the Triad and the Bertinelli crime family take hostages and have large, scary guns and Laurel takes a through-and-through in the shoulder and Ray hits his head so hard even the ATOM helmet doesn’t protect him from getting knocked out.

There are a few minutes where Felicity isn’t sure if he’s alive or dead. She hears John and Sara calling his name and she holds her breath and resists the urge to throw up. Then there’s a groan—a tiny, miniscule groan—and she breathes again.

Later, after the bad guys have all been taken care of and Oliver has stitched up Laurel’s shoulder and everyone is home safe, Felicity holds an ice pack to Ray’s forehead and brings him a mug of tea. He looks extra large, somehow, on her couch, stretched out with sore muscles and bruises already starting to form and a dazed look on his face. He most likely has a concussion.

“Hey,” she says softly, “this right here, you putting yourself in harm’s way to help my friends and help the city? It drives me crazy and is going to give me gray hair way before my time. But it’s one of the many reasons that I love you.”

Ray doesn’t respond. His mouth is suddenly otherwise occupied, concussion and all.

 


End file.
